The 2012 edition of the Life In My City Art Festival (LIMCAF) came to a resounding climax of creative beauty, gaiety, and joyous excitement honoured by royalty at the Nike Lake Resort Hotel on Saturday 27.

Belgian married and Nigerian born writer, Chika Unigwe last week in Lagos became the second Diaspora writer to win Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas, NLNG $100,000 prize for literature. Her entry, On Black Sister Street, which explores sexual slavery and other precarious situations of women floored Olusshola Olugbesan’s Only A Canvass and Ngozi Achebe’s Onaedo: The Blacksmith’s Daughter to clinch the coveted literary prize. In this interview, the serial award winning writer fielded questions about the book and her perception of the prize. Excerpt:

Ever since the publication in 1956 of Professor Kenneth Onwuka Dike’s Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta: 1830-1890, the Niger Delta region has been of great interest to Nigerian and foreign scholars. Most studies of the region have focused on the way in which its unique geography has combined with historical personages and significant events to throw up issues that are germane to a proper understanding of the region in particular and the Nigerian nation as a whole.

Dr. Duniya Gambo of the Department of Fine Arts, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria has called for the establishment of Endowment Fund for Artists ‘to help lead the country attain technological advancement.

Chief Gabriel Osawuru Igbenedion, Solomon Iyobosa Edebiri and Professor P. E. Igbinovia were among prominent Bini sons that gathered recently at the Oba Akenzua Cultural Centre, Benin City, Edo State to take a critical look at the arts, culture and politics of the Bini ethnic nationality.

The Hibiscus Foundation UK last week at Eko Hotel, Lagos,launched a unique animated film that presents the shocking and inhuman horrors endured by victims of trafficking titled A Dangerous Journey.

The recent launch of the book, Reforming the Unreformable: Lessons from Nigeria by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s Finance and Coordinating Minister once again puts the former World Bank Vice President back to the writers’ platform.

The battle for the much coveted $100,000 prize money of the 2012 Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas NLNG sponsored Nigeria Prize for Literature came to its climax last week with Enugu State born Chika Unigwe emerging winner.

Kunle Adeyemi’s on going solo exhibition at the Quintessence Gallery , Falomo Ikoyi, Lagos is a climax of his new research innovations in the exploration of form, material and subject. Titled, Painthograph and Painthocast: A New Consciousness, the visual show comes in the heel of his successful completion of a doctoral programme in studio art.

There are several ways one can be an ambassador to one’s nation. Apart from the conventional posting of career diplomats to other nations of the world as ambassadors, academics and work qualify at several levels as ambassadors to their nations where ever their works find themselves outside of the shores of their home countries.